Newsletter Dec 2014.pub - British False Memory Society

The Newsletter of the British False Memory Society
Vol. 22, No. 1. – December 2014
Serving People and Professionals
Dear Reader
The past six months have been devoted to implementing our ambitious plans to cut the charity’s
overheads by closing the main office and to setting up our new work arrangements from remote
stations around the country utilising all that technology can afford us. We thank everyone for their
patience whilst we ironed out the logistical challenges plus the delays in being able to utilise our
new telephone system. We are now settled, the
archive has a new home at City University, London and the BFMS newsletter has a new editor,
Dr Kevin Felstead, whose editorial follows:
allegations of child sexual abuse has ensured that
it is more difficult than ever for the falsely accused to get a fair hearing. In the current legal
climate, it appears that the system of criminal
justice has been thrown into turmoil. Accusing
parties are no longer described as ‘complainants’,
but ‘victims’ – a departure from a longestablished legal practice dating back to the midnineteenth century. Elsewhere in this newsletter,
former Rough Justice and Trial and Error television presenter, David Jessel has aptly described
this process as “a perfect storm.”
I have been in post for almost six months now.
From my perspective, that time has passed quickly. The job has been exhilarating. I have particularly enjoyed dealing with new cases, speaking
with members, lawyers and other professionals.
In equal measure, I have enjoyed communicating
with a wide range of professional colleagues –
including members of our Advisory Board. The
collective knowledge – specific and generic – you
all share has been truly impressive.
It is not all doom and gloom however. The Society continues to provide support to members falsely accused of historic sexual abuse, based on false
memory. In several recent cases, members have
been exonerated following unsuccessful prosecutions, although the damage done to their families
and the financial burden of mounting a successful
defence cannot easily be fixed.
The post has proved challenging. Reading members’ harrowing accounts of false and distorted
memory, appalling therapy, false allegations and,
in some cases, dreadful miscarriages of justice
and wrongful imprisonment was a humbling experience which hammered home to me the devastating impact of false memory in the United Kingdom over the last 20 years. The fallout from the
Jimmy Savile scandal and the subsequent police
inquiry, Operation Yew Tree, has not helped. In a
previous newsletter, solicitor Claire Anderson
warned ominously about governmental reforms to
the criminal justice system and the inherent dangers for the falsely accused. Her concerns have
proven to be justified and the impact of legal aid
cuts is now beginning to hit home. To compound
this situation, the cavalier attitude of the Police
and the Crown Prosecution Service to historic
BFMS Newsletter – Vol. 22, No.1.
Statistically the Society has seen a long-term
reduction in the number of new cases we receive.
In 1994, there were 268 new cases; in 2004, this
number had reduced to 74. A downward trend has
continued, with 34 new cases reporting to the
Table of Contents
Editorial.............................................. 1
In the News……………………………..2
Special Features A Perfect Storm 3
Interview with Prof Chris French 6
Members’ Forum ............................... 7
Book Reviews .................................... 7
Legal Forum....................................... 9
1
Society in 2013. It is too early to tell if this trend
has been reversed this year.
Madeline and I are determined to raise awareness
about the devastating impact of false memory and
the work of the BFMS in general. To that end, I
have recently written to Alison Saunders (the
Director of Public Prosecutions) and to Chris
Grayling (the Minister for Justice). Madeline has
made a submission, highlighting the perils of
false memory, to the Criminal Case Review Commission. I have started to make contact with a
number of University Departments and I have
been invited to a number of speaking engagements in 2015.
We are trying to raise awareness about the work
of the Society through other forums. Madeline
and I have attended two successful FACT
(Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers) events; I
also attended a National Miscarriage of Justice
event, which was held at Liverpool John Moores
University. The new partnership with City University will provide a platform to take our work
forward and to continue to bring it to the attention
of the public and practitioners working in the
criminal justice system.
Kevin Felstead
Diary Note
IN THE NEWS
Schoolteacher falsely accused of child sexual abuse
cleared on all counts
Schoolteacher Simon Warr was recently acquitted
on separate counts of historic sex offences, which
were supposed to have taken place in the 1980s
and 1990s.
A Jury at Ipswich Crown Court took less than 40
minutes to acquit him. In a statement which is
sadly all too familiar to the BFMS Mr Warr, who
was arrested in 2012, described the devastating
impact of the false allegations: “It’s hard because
I lost my home, I lost my community at the Royal
Hospital School, which I loved, I lost my job, my
friends, my job at Radio Suffolk, and of course I
lost my reputation.”
I have said it before and I will say it again, no-one
benefits from a false allegation and certainly not
real abuse victims when resources – which are not
finite – are directed to investigating fantastical
claims based on false memory or malicious prosecution by attention seeking individuals many of
whom suffer from psychiatric illness.
***
BFMS AGM 2015
25th April 2015
Will be held in central London
A Great Mental Health Myth
"“That traumas experienced as a child can be
totally forgotten for decades is the great mentalhealth myth of our time - a myth that is not only
devastating innocent families but doing enormous
damage to psychiatry" Martin Gardner (1914 2010)
More than 21 years ago he wrote the following
article: The False Memory Syndrome which has
been reprinted in honour of his work in the January 2015 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer. You can
read this article on:
http://www.csicop.org/uploads/files/martingardner-pdfs/false-memory-syndrome.pdf
BFMS Newsletter – Vol.22, No.1.
Satanic Panic in Scotland
If you thought it had gone away, then think again.
The press have got caught up in a moral panic
about the putative widespread existence of Satanic Ritual Abuse in Scotland. The Express on Sunday (9 November 2014) reported that: “ The existence of such terrifying cults is said to have gone
unchecked in Scotland for decades … Police in
Scotland said yesterday they were taking the
allegations ‘incredibly seriously’ and would investigate any complaints. The Scottish Express
adopted a similar perspective illustrating how
quickly journalists can get caught up in a frenzy
of superstitious irrationality.
This latest moral panic, triggered by two charities
claiming to have discovered widespread evidence
of SRA, mirrors the moral panic which manifested in the UK in the early 1990s. Yet, as Professor
Chris French (Guardian On-Line 18 November
2014) has suggested, this latest wave of hysteria
2
is ‘almost certainly’ based on false memories:
“The use of various dubious techniques”, writes
French, “by therapists and counsellors aimed at
recovering allegedly repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse can often produce detailed and
horrific false memories.” The fantastical claims in
Scotland which include sacrificial slaughter and
the creation of snuff movies parallel exactly the
discredited allegations of SRA in Nottingham
(1987), Rochdale (1990) and in the Orkney Islands in 1991. There is no proof, no evidence, just
uncorroborated allegations. Those helping to
propagate this latest myth might well note that in
2006, the 16 adults who were forcibly taken into
care following the Rochdale panic successfully
sued the local authority for damages.
***
SPECIAL FEATURE
The Making of a “Perfect
Storm”?
David Jessel
David Jessel, best known for his Rough Justice
and Trial and Error television series investigating
miscarriages of justice, first gave this address to
the FACT Spring Conference May 2014. It has
been re-printed here with kind permission of both
the author and FACT.
Thank you for inviting me to kick off this afternoon’s session of FACT’s conference.
You have been especially generous in your invitation given that most television investigations
ignore the issue of falsely accused carers and
teachers, preferring the cases of good honest
murderers.
But as for my time as a Commissioner at the
CCRC, although sometimes dispiriting – largely
due to the shadow of ‘real possibility’ looming
over us from the Court of Appeal – I remember
two cases in particular which gave me some satisfaction; the first was that of a falsely accused
music teacher who we successfully referred after
a review of the science of recovered memory.
Alas, he did not live to hear his conviction
BFMS Newsletter – Vol. 22, No.1.
quashed. The second was of a care home assistant convicted after his alibi evidence could not
be supported by staff rota records which had gone
missing. As a blunt non-lawyer Commissioner,
it just felt wrong to me that a defendant was effectively denied his only defence – and I’m glad
to say my more learned colleagues and the CACD
(Court of Appeal Criminal Division) agreed with
my amateur opinion.
I think a big problem with those who are indifferent to, or unaware of miscarriages of justice is a
failure of imagination. They cannot imagine the
sense of utter and desperate loss when you have
lost your appeal, lost your legal support, lost your
liberty, your reputation, your career, your family,
your life – and there’s nothing you can do about
it. For my part, I remember reading a description
of wrongful conviction as ‘like being tortured for
information you don’t actually possess.’
They
cannot imagine how, as Lord McAlpine said, “it
gets into your soul, into your bones.” Another
Tory – at this rate, criminal justice reform will be
in next year’s Conservative election manifesto.
We can only hope, for his own good, that Chris
Grayling gets accused of a crime of which he is
innocent. Then he might know what it is like to
be defended by a solicitor who is paid a maximum of £250 to read the case papers to decide if
an appeal is worthwhile.
Legal aid cuts are just one part of the perfect
storm which is building toward hurricane force
and which directly threaten the falsely accused.
A second element – you won’t need reminding –
is the gathering momentum around the Operation
Yewtree and associated cases. Now I make no
comment on these, but I do know that all those
factors that lead to false accusations will have
been encouraged by the prosecutions, and none of
those factors which promote caution over such
allegations will have been discouraged.
I’d couple with that the new orthodoxy that ‘the
victim must be heard’ which so easily blurs into
the concept that the complainant must be believed. Victimology is shark-infested waters in
which I do not publicly dare to paddle; I’d only
commend an article by the barrister Barbara Hewson which I found on the FACT website which
forensically anatomises and coolly critiques the
victim culture.
3
Legal aid cuts, the fallout from Yewtree, and a
third element – don’t for a moment believe that
the higher judiciary are immune to the effects of
moral panic. Consider this careful view from
Lord Chief Justice Woolf in 2001 in an interview
where he said child sex cases presented the greatest danger of miscarriages of justice; abuse allegations "were easy to make" and might be motivated by claims for compensation. He said serious concerns had already been raised … over a
number of paedophile convictions…involving
"very old offences" from former residents of
children's homes. He said many of the recollections, "may not be accurate", especially when
they were "tempted" by awards from the Criminal
Injuries Compensation Board and the police were
asking, "Did anything happen to you?"
Plans to relax the rules of evidence could add to
the danger of miscarriages of justice in child
abuse cases, he warned.
Now compare that with a recent lecture from the
last LCJ Lord Judge in the last few weeks. Lord
Judge was damning in his indictment of past
processes which, he argued, ‘discouraged or effectively disenfranchised the young from coming
forward’. With cases of historic sexual allegations coming to the fore “we are,’ he said,
‘catching up with the consequences of the problems ignored or created by earlier generations.’
He questioned whether a belief that children were
not worth listening to was part of the reason for
the recent emergence of so many historic sexual
abuse cases. This belief, combined with rules of
admissibility designed as a safeguard to protect
the innocent from wrongful conviction, and the
‘competency test’, whereby ‘children below some
notional fixed age could not give evidence’ simply closed the door to many children’s complaints.
In other words, the court’s thinking, swayed, I
have no doubt, by the recent prosecutions, has
lurched into complete reverse from where it was
13 years ago.
Let me be frank. I believe some accusations are
true. But I was always struck – when I was a
Commissioner at the CCRC – by the sheer fragility of the evidence in these case, especially when
set against the consequences I referred to a minute ago. In the end, it was so often one person’s
word against the other, often with the judge
weighing in to assist the jury by saying ‘you have
seen the complainant. Is it possible to imagine
that she could have made up so many disgusting
BFMS Newsletter – Vol.22, No.1.
and terrible things?’
I have to tell those judges that these days it is
commonplace for young teenagers to download
porn videos of anal, oral and whatever sort of sex
and send clips via their mobile phones to girls
saying that that’s what they’d like to do next time.
We live in a different world. It’s time judges did,
too.
And I wouldn’t restrict this attitude to sex cases.
In cases of so called Shaken Baby Syndrome the
court regularly shirks the truth that in all but obvious cases the best scientific knowledge is that we
do not know what happens to some of these babies. One day, when neuroscience finally yields
up it secrets, we will look on Shaken Baby Convictions in the same way we think about burning
witches.
I mentioned the CCRC, and have to include that
as the fourth component of my perfect storm.
When I was a Commissioner, I was shocked by
the sheer volume of child sex cases – up to 40%
of the entire case load. These cases were overwhelmingly rejected on the grounds that there
was little or nothing that could be done. Many of
them were rejected on the grounds that the applicant had not appealed, and so the CCRC could
only refer in ‘exceptional circumstances’ which
the CCRC alone, with its special powers under
section 17, has any chance of discovering. Well,
people often don’t appeal because they are told by
their own defence team that they can’t find any
grounds; the applicant is in no position to find
any exceptional circumstances. But in this cruel
Catch 22 the CCRC rejects the cases on the application form alone, on the grounds that they don’t
contain any exceptional circumstances.
To be frank, the sheer scale of these applications,
much of it with no merit at all – ‘my nine year old
stepdaughter never complained at the time’ –
induces a miscarriage fatigue.
My advice to
solicitors involved with the CCRC is to put the
Commission on notice that they expect the CCRC
at least to implement its own Formal Memoranda,
and take the prescribed investigatory steps involving past and continuing social service records,
school records and so on. Confidentiality gags
me, but I was at times aware of the dangers of
screening out these cases without any further
investigation at all.
4
Still with the CCRC, I am disturbed by a referral
rate which has reduced in crude terms from 4%
when I left in 2010 to 1.6% now.
I honestly don’t believe that miscarriages of justice have more than halved over the past few
years. I do believe, however, that there has been
a steady drift away from the investigative function of the CCRC to baldly analytical, case paper
processing. The foreword to the 2012/13 CCRC
annual report claims that most miscarriages of
justice arise from procedural matters, and that
“there are simple checks which can usually establish whether complainants’ credibility might be
an issue for consideration.”
In my practical experience of 30 years of investigating miscarriages of justice, the answer only
rarely lurks in the paperwork.
I have always
found that whenever you actually meet a prisoner
or a witness, or go to the scene of the crime, you
discover something new. You are unlikely to get
the same result from simply interrogating a database. At the CCRC I did help to push through a
pilot programme where in every sex case the
applicant should at least be seen. This was speedily closed down by the accountancy tendency of
the CCRC as being expensive and of no quantifiable advantage.
Resources do have an effect on delivery, and
that’s as true of justice as anything else. 35 case
review managers cannot do justice to 1600 cases
a year.
I come to my fifth, and probably the most depressing element – in what I confess has been a
less than cheerful speech. But I believe it contains the seeds of hope.
We have lost interest in miscarriages of justice.
As a former Channel 4 boss told me rather languidly, Miscarriages of Justice are a bit 80’s.
Today, the quashing of a conviction after nine
years scarcely warrants a paragraph - even in the
Guardian.
It doesn’t help that those who are concerned
about miscarriages are in a state of civil war innocence projects notoriously clawing each other’s eyes out, squabbling over cases, refusing to
co-operate with the media – “why should we give
all our research to you?” – in one case persuading
a prisoner to abandon his solicitor – an iconic
figure in the history of miscarriages of justice.
BFMS Newsletter – Vol. 22, No.1.
The divisions in our mission show that we have
dropped the torch that my friend and hero Ludovic Kennedy lit, and it can only serve to please
those who are indifferent to justice.
Let me appeal for a truce. We can all work together towards the discovery and cure of miscarriages of justice. If the CCRC hasn’t the resources to do the investigative spadework, let’s
hand the task to those students in the Innocence
Projects to bring to the CCRC and say – what do
you make of that, then?” Let’s encourage the
CCRC to be more open to cases with a high media profile – they have a high profile because
journalists have done some digging and come up
with new evidence.
And yet… I do detect a renewed concern about
justice in this country. Hillsborough, Plebgate,
Tomlinson, undercover policemen, made-up
crime figures, the appalling shortcomings of the
Police Federation are once again fanning the
spark of concern about our criminal justice system. The success of the Justice Gap website – I
beg you to follow it – is also another straw in the
wind.
I have always been an optimist – it’s what made
me in 1985 chose to present Rough Justice rather
than the Holiday programme. No brainer, because I believe that whether it is Hillsborough,
the Birmingham Six, the Luton Post Office murders which went back to the Court of Appeal five
times before justice prevailed, the case of Eddie
Gilfoyle, even maybe Lockerbie - the truth does
have a habit of worming itself to the surface.
It needs help to do so. It needs an awful lot of
help. But I sense a mood in society more ready to
accept that terrible mistakes are made in the name
of the law; the growth of the feeling that if we are
to put the needs of victims first, that includes
victims of justice and false accusations. Even
Channel 5 are about to launch a miscarriage of
justice series. The pendulum has a habit of
swinging back, but it needs the continued momentum of the falsely accused individually and
collectively, and of FACT as an organisation. It
needs the falsely accused and wrongly convicted
to have faith that however abandoned they feel –
they are not alone. There is hope. The time will
come. Public concern about justice and the falsely accused is returning.
5
Interview with Professor
Christopher French
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chris
French, Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths,
University of London, and a member of the
BFMS Advisory Board. The interview took place
in the office of Chris’ wife, who lectures at Birkbeck College, also part of the University of London. They met whilst studying at Leicester University and in the past participated in collaborative research. This helped to cement their relationship. “We couldn’t split up”, Chris proclaimed, “because we didn’t know who would get
custody of the data!”
Chris’ research focuses on the psychology of
paranormal and related beliefs, and the psychology of belief in conspiracy theories. He has appeared on numerous science television and radio
programmes and documentaries – including Everyman, Timewatch and Heart of the Matter. Chris
has been invited to provide a sceptical perspective
on a range of topics, including: telepathy, faithhealing, hypnotic past-life regression, ghosts,
UFOs, out-of-body experiences and astrology. I
asked Chris how he first got involved in this unusual area of work.
“As a teenager and young adult, I was pretty
much a believer in all of that stuff. I read various
books and there wasn’t much around in terms of
sceptical literature in those days.”
I enquired why he changed his views about these
subjects. It turns out that the major turning point
was the publication in 1981 of James Alcock’s
Parasychology: Science or Magic? This book
challenged Chris’ pre-existing beliefs: “I went
from being a believer to being a sceptic and I
started to subscribe to an American magazine, the
Skeptical Inquirer. I was 29 at that time.”
As Chris continued with his teaching and research, he realized that much of the information
supporting the existence of paranormal activity
did not stand up to rigorous academic scrutiny. In
other words, it was not supported by the evidence.
However, as a relatively young academic researcher, Chris became aware of a further difficulty as he realized quickly that his research area
was “tolerated, but not encouraged. I was explicitly told by my head of department not to devote
too much of my time to this research.” This reBFMS Newsletter – Vol.22, No.1.
sulted in Chris leading a double life at work,
carrying out ‘mainstream’ research but simultaneously pursuing his interest in the paranormal. At
times, this proved to be something of a challenge.
Somewhat harshly, in my opinion, Chris stated
that “with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had
been a bit more courageous early on.”
Chris is aware of the fact that one’s own beliefs
inevitably bias one’s interpretation of any complex body of evidence. “I tell my students”, said
Chris, “that I do have a particular viewpoint on
these issues, but, conversely, I could stand up in
lectures for 11 weeks and convince them to believe in the paranormal. The important thing is to
get the students to think about the evidence for
themselves and make up their own minds on the
basis of sound reasoning and the quality of that
evidence.”
I raise the subject of false memory. “There is no
doubt that some people are susceptible to false
memory. In fact, we all are, to a greater or lesser
extent.” Chris affirmed what every member of the
BFMS knows about false memory – namely that
the academic and scientific evidence has comprehensively demolished the notion that the mind
blocks out traumatic experiences. As Chris wrote
in the Guardian newspaper, a few years ago: “The
evidence strongly suggests that far from being
unable to remember sexual abuse, victims typically find it all too difficult to keep such memories
out of their consciousness.” In other words, people who are abused tend to remember being
abused. They do not need the help of a psychotherapist to help them to recall that abuse. Yet, as
Chris pointed out, “The classic view is that memories might never be recovered, but they can be
recovered by a skilled psychotherapist. However,
there are no sure-fire symptoms of childhood
sexual abuse.” We have a fruitful discussion
about child abuse and agree that the BFMS will
never defend this abhorrent crime. But in equal
measure, the Society must continue to vehemently support the rights of the falsely accused.
Chris began to take an interest in the BFMS – and
more generally in the topic of false memory –
during the mid-1990s, following claims of alien
abduction. After recently reading Susan Clancy’s
book on this subject, I can understand his position. “Should it not give us pause for thought that
exactly the same ‘memory recovery’ techniques,
including hypnotic regression and guided image6
ry, can give rise to apparent memories of being
taken on board spaceships and medically examined by aliens?” Chris is insistent that many socalled ‘abductees’ share striking similarities with
victims of false memory. “The techniques used
are identical”, he stresses.
effectively with calls to the telephone helpline
service, mentoring and improving our internal
communication channels with volunteers. A big
Thank you to everyone who attended.
The BFMS is fortunate to be able to draw on the
knowledge and experience of Professor French.
His sound analytical reasoning, easy demeanour
and down-to-earth attitude make him a force to be
reckoned with. Many thanks to Chris for taking
time out of his busy schedule for this interview
and sharing his views with the BFMS.
BOOK REVIEWS
Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal
Belief and Experience, by Chris French and Anna
Stone, is available on Amazon Books.
***
Books: Justice for Carol –
the true story of Carol
Felstead by Kevin and Richard Felstead
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/
ISBN: 9781494962616 £7. 99
Review by Peter Dale
***
MEMBERS’ FORUM
Volunteers’ Training Day
The BFMS has a team of volunteers who provide
support and advice on our telephone help line,
each Friday. When new callers first contact the
Society, this can be difficult and challenging. The
volunteers do an excellent job and the Society is
extremely grateful for to them for giving their
time. The Helpline is a priority and we need to
continue to provide a professional service.
On 7 October 2014, the BFMS held its first Volunteers’ Training Day, at the Ibis Hotel, London
Euston. The purpose of the day was to provide
our volunteers with an up-date about the new
working arrangements following closure of the
BFMS office in June; to provide information
about the ongoing development of the BFMS web
site; to share good practice and to review the
information available to volunteers and the level
of service which volunteers can offer. Dr Peter
Naish, Dr Katharine Mair and Dr Bryan Tully –
all members of the BFMS Advisory Board – were
in attendance to provide specialist input around
their particular areas of expertise.
There was a consensus that the day was positive
and beneficial to all participants, generating fruitful discussion about the BFMS web site, dealing
BFMS Newsletter – Vol. 22, No.1.
This is an astonishing book in two ways. First,
with regard to the outrageous prolonged supposedly ‘therapeutic’ interventions that inculcated
Carol with a false belief system that she had been
subjected to ‘satanic’ abuse by her family
throughout her childhood. Second, is the extraordinary tenacity of the Felstead family (largely
through freedom of information requests) in uncovering the details of the iatrogenic brainwashing of Carol, alongside the flawed processes of
both the Coroner’s office and the police following
her untimely death. It is this detail, including
quotes from contemporaneous records, that makes
this book a horrifying yet compelling read.
In short, Carol (whose medical and educational
records indicate that she had an unremarkable yet
happy childhood) fell into the clutches of several
abuse-obsessed therapists when in her early 20s.
At this time, in the mid 1980s, she came to believe that she had been the victim of prolonged
satanic, ritualistic and sadistic abuse at the hands
of her family (and also prominent politicians)
throughout her childhood. In fact, Carol became a
‘star’ Satanic Abuse ‘survivor – and apparently
featured as such in a book from that era by one of
her high profile therapists. Following Carol’s
untimely death in 2005, another of these therapists falsely claimed to be her next of kin, and
attempted to arrange her cremation without her
family being informed. It is jaw-droppingly staggering that this particular therapist was a past
chair of the BMA ethics committee. Names are
named in the book.
7
This book is a powerful testament to the capacity
of therapeutic models (and therapists) to become
infected with self-reinforcing paranoid and even
delusional belief systems. One major example of
this is the history of so-called “recovered memory
therapy” involving therapy-induced false beliefs
about childhood sexual abuse. Whilst the associated ‘Satanic Panic’ era is now largely history,
the same contagion process can reappear in a
‘rebranded’ form – be it with deluded beliefs
about alien abduction, past lives, or the notion of
multiple personality disorder.
My own research in the early 1990s into clients’
experiences of therapy concluded the process has
the potential for great benefit, and also great harm
(Dale 1999). With competent and ethical therapy
many people can (and do) make important desired
positive changes in their lives and relationships.
However, as portrayed vividly in this book, there
is the dark side. Vulnerable clients, such as Carol
Felstead, subject to brainwashing about imaginary
external malign forces, can be unwittingly manipulated into an altered identity, isolation, and ultimately pathological dependence on the actual cult
of the consulting room – the cult of the perverse
therapeutic process.
Dale, P (1999) Adults Abused as Children: Experiences of Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage.
Dale, P (1999) Multiple Personality Disorder: A
Sceptical perspective. In: M. Walker and A.
Black, Hidden Slaves: An Exploration of Multiple Personality. Buckingham: Open University
Press.
***
Suggestibility in Legal Contexts:
Psychological Research and Forensic Implications
Ridley, Anne M.; Gabbert, Fiona; La Rooy, David J.,
Wiley Series in Psychology of Crime, Policing and
Law), John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2014.
See:http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/
productCd-0470663685.html for purchase options
from £26.99 (E-book), £32.99 9 (paperback) to £67.50
(hardcover). Suggestibility helps us to be open to
new ideas but can make us vulnerable to deception or malevolent manipulation. This collection
of essays shows how suggestibility impinges on
BFMS Newsletter – Vol.22, No.1.
people caught up in or administering criminal law
and by looking at many aspects of the subject it is
potentially very useful.
Anne Ridley’s opening chapter explores the concept’s history and describes recent work on its
relevance to interviews and interrogations.
‘Investigative suggestibility’ is offered to distinguish between that which happens incidentally
from that caused by pressurised questioning.
Suggestibility is hard to pin down but various
definitions are offered and it is distinguished from
compliance and conformity. Chapter 2 considers
the forced fabrication of completely invented
happenings, Chapter 3 deals with interrogative
suggestibility and compliance and Chapter 4
looks at what happens when co-witnesses discuss
their testimony. Chapter 5 is about the way individual differences affect suggestibility and Chapter 6 by James Ost will be of most interest to
BFMS members. It is about the issue of memories
of child sexual abuse said to be recovered after
years of amnesia as well as the experimental
induction of false memories of trauma. His conclusion is that there is no convincing evidence of
any mechanism that ‘blocks-out’ memories of
trauma and that ‘recovered memories’ cannot be
relied on without corroborating evidence. In
Chapter 7 four authors review variations in the
suggestibility of children. Chapter 8 is about
vulnerable groups and Chapter 9, a very practical
chapter, shows how coercive interrogation may
lead to false confessions and gives useful advice
to help innocent suspects equip themselves to
resist such manipulation. Chapter 10 shows how
improved interviewing methods have helped to
reduce misleading suggestibility effects and
Chapter 11 by the editors summarises the key
findings and highlights the implications in legal
contexts.
Altogether the conclusion is that people involved
in the criminal law including police interviewers,
lawyers, judges and juries are woefully ignorant
of the often insidious role of suggestion and suggestibility in all aspects of legal proceedings. This
book is therefore essential reading for all concerned and its conclusions merit the most serious
consideration.
Barnabas May 2014
8
LEGAL
Justice for Carol –
Application for New Inquest
On 13 February 2013, David Felstead (Carol’s
brother) applied to the Attorney General’s Office
for authority to bring a statutory review claim in
accordance with Section 13 of the Coroner’s Act
1988 seeking a new inquest. On 4 March 2014,
the Solicitor-General granted that authority.
Section 13 of the 1988 Act provides as follows:
(1) … Where, on an application by or under authority of the Attorney General, the High Court is
satisfied as respects a coroner …
Where an inquest has been held by him, that
(whether by reason of fraud, rejection of evidence, irregularity of proceedings, insufficiency
of inquiry, the discovery of new facts or evidence
or otherwise) it is necessary or desirable in the
interests of justice that another inquest should be
held …
(2) The High Court may –
(a) Order … another inquest to be held into the
death either
(i) By the coroner concerned; or
(ii) By the coroner from another district in the
same administrative area;
(c) Where an inquest has been held, quash the
inquisition on that inquest.
Following Carol's death a good deal of fresh evidence has emerged which we were unaware of at
the time of the first inquest - which took place in
2005. It is this new information which formed a
central aspect of the application to the Attorney
General.
Additionally, following a number of protracted
inquiries, Carol's psychiatric records - several
thousand pages in total - were obtained after an
arduous struggle. The records reveal that Carol
first presented to her doctor with reoccurring
headache and demonstrate unambiguously that
she had no 'memories' of being abused prior to
receiving recovered memory therapy. Her medical and psychiatric files reveal that she was hypnotised and that her 'treatment' was supported by
vast quantities of prescribed medication including
a number of mind-altering drugs. Carol's story has
now been reported in seven national and two
regional newspapers. At the time of writing, there
is further media interest including a potential
documentary. Carol's family remain confident
that the true narrative of her false memories will
BFMS Newsletter – Vol. 22, No.1.
be a central feature of the new inquest - which we
expect will take place early next year.
Solicitors representing the Coroner for Westminster have been instructed to consent to the application and to that effect a Statement of Reasons
and a draft Consent Order has been submitted for
approval by the Court on the agreed basis that it
would be necessary in the interests of justice for a
fresh inquest to be held. Signed copies of the
Consent Order were lodged with the High Court
on 25 November 2014. The Order will be considered by two judges sitting in private. If approved,
the previous inquest will be quashed and a new
inquest granted and pronounced in Open Court.
***
Christopher Jefferies—A
Cautionary Tale
The BBC broadcast a two-part documentary drama on the plight of Christopher Jefferies who was
arrested and questioned by police on suspicion of
murdering Joanna Yeates in December 2010.
Jefferies, a retired and respected public school
teacher, was the victim of a feeding frenzy by the
press. Jefferies was questioned relentlessly by the
police and kept on police bail until March 2011.
A neighbour, Vincent Tabak, was charged with
Joanna’s murder in January 2011 and later sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted
in a unanimous decision by jury in Bristol Crown
Court. Jefferies successfully sued eight newspapers for defamation over their coverage of his
case.
One of the chief characteristics of current and
past cases seen by the BFMS is shoddy police
investigation. Particularly in the current climate,
victims of false allegations are being dragged
through the criminal justice system on the flimsiest of claims.
Paradoxically there is an abundance of evidence
which suggests that the police have failed to act
in serious cases, such as the Rotherham Child
Abuse Scandal. Professor Alexis Jay’s report
highlights systemic failings of the police and
other statutory bodies. Jay concluded that during
a 16 year period from 1997, approximately 1, 400
children were targeted by predatory gangs. Yet
the police failed to act. What is the point of having a criminal justice system if it is failing victims
of the worst kind of crime imaginable, bar genocide, and simultaneously, in cases of false
memory, ensnaring innocent people for imaginary
crimes which never happened?
9
Overseas False Memory Societies
Please feel free to write or phone if you have relatives in these countries who would like to
receive local information. The American and Australian groups produce newsletters.
AUSTRALIA
Australian False Memory Association Inc., PO Box 694,
Epping NSW 2121, Australia
Tel: 00 61 300 88 88 77 · Email: [email protected]
· www.afma.asn.au
CANADA
Paula – Tel: 00 1 705 534 0318 · Email: [email protected]
Adriaan Mak – Tel: 00 1 519 471 6338 · Email: [email protected]
FRANCE
Alerte Faux Souvenirs Induits, Maison des Associations, 11
rue Caillaux, 75013 Paris, France
Tel: 00 33 6 81 67 10 55 · Email:
[email protected] · www.psyfmfrance.fr
GERMANY
Schulterschluss bei Sektenbetroffnheit e.V.
Email: [email protected].
Www.schulterschluss.info
NETHERLANDS
Email: [email protected] · www.werkgroepwfh.nl
NEW ZEALAND
Donald Hudson, Casualties of False Sexual Allegations
New Zealand Inc, 80 Avondale Road, Christchurch, New
Zealand
Tel: 00 64 3 388 2173 · Email: [email protected] ·
www.geocities.com/newcosanz
NORDIC COUNTRIES
Åke Möller – Fax: 00 46 431 21096 · Email:
[email protected]
USA
False Memory Syndrome Foundation, 1955 Locust Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19103-5766, USA
Tel: 00 1 215 940-1040 · www.fmsfonline.org
The Scientific and Professional Advisory Board provides BFMS with guidance and advice
concerning future scientific, legal and professional enquiry into all aspects of false accusations of
abuse. Whilst the members of the board support the purposes of BFMS as set out in its brochure,
the views expressed in this newsletter might not necessarily be held by some or all of the board
members. Equally, BFMS may not always agree with the views expressed by members of the
board.
SCIENTIFIC & PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY BOARD: Professor R J Audley – Professor
Emeritus of Psychology, University College London. Professor Sir P P G Bateson, FRS –
Professor of Ethology, University of Cambridge. Professor M Conway - Professor of Cognitive
Psychology, City University, London. Dr Hamish Cameron—Consultant Child Psychiatrist
(Retired) Professor C C French – Professor of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London. Dr
Fiona Gabbert - Reader in Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London. Dr Cara Laney –
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, Oregon. Mrs Katharine
Mair – Consultant Clinical Psychologist (Retired). Mr D Morgan – Child, Educational & Forensic
Psychologist, London. Dr P L N Naish – Visiting Reader in Psychology, The Sackler Centre for
Consciousness Science, Sussex University. Dr J Ost – Senior Lecturer in Psychology, International
Centre for Research in Forensic Psychology, University of Portsmouth. Dr. G Oxburgh—Consultant
Forensic Psychologist, Newcastle University. Mr K Sabbagh – Writer & Managing Director,
Skyscraper Productions. Dr B Tully – Chartered Clinical & Forensic Psychologist, London. Dr
Kimberley Wade – Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Warwick. Professor L
Weiskrantz, FRS – Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Oxford. Professor D B
Wright – Professor of Psychology, Florida International University.
BFMS · P.O. Box 172, Stockport SK6 9BP
Tel: 01225 333654
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.bfms.org.uk
Registered Charity Number: 1040683
BFMS Newsletter – Vol.22, No.1.
Management and Administration
Board of Trustees
Madeline Greenhalgh, Director
Dr Kevin Felstead, Director of Communications
Carolyn Dutch, Administrator
10